


Flesh and Blood

by AbhorrentSelkie



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Gore, Branding, Brother/Brother Incest, Childhood Friends, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, FE3H Kinkmeme, Forced Crossdressing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Relationship(s), Rape, Rebellion, Sibling Incest, Zombie Apocalypse, background Ingrid/Dedue, no beta we die like Glenn, zombie-typical gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:21:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28966005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbhorrentSelkie/pseuds/AbhorrentSelkie
Summary: Felix was ten when the world ended.A decade has passed since then, and Fodlan is a different, dangerous world. When the mysterious hooded mages who can somehow control the rotters overthrow Fhirdiad, one of the last safe havens left in Fodlan, Felix follows his friends into exile, working to rally a resistance against the new self-appointed queen. Their need for supplies brings them to an unlikely ally, Miklan Gautier. In his compound, they're reunited with a friend they long-since thought dead, facing a living hell at the hands of his own flesh and blood... maybe even a fate worse than death.Felix was seventeen the last time he saw Sylvain._____Fill for FE3H Kinkmeme
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Sylvain Jose Gautier/Miklan
Comments: 7
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> Apocalypse/zombie AU  
> Dimitri, Dedue(?), Ingrid and Felix for some reason have to seek help or shelter from Miklan and his gang in a barricaded encampment and find that sylvain's there too, except. He's been forced to wear a dress and be the crew's "princess" in these dark and dangerous times.
> 
> Do Dimitri and the rest try to escape with sylvain in tow and risk running from both zombies/twsitd/etc AND miklan's gang? Does Miklan have Sylvain service them to "boost" their morale? I'm all about them struggling between needing access to miklan's supplies but also wanting to bust sylvain out of his situation!
> 
> no sex needed tbh, tho noncon is fine  
> no bathroom stuff please.  
> \-----  
> Please mind the tags. This isn't going to be a happy story, it's going to be miserable and bloody and fucked.

Felix was ten when the world ended.

When every channel on every television in every home displayed the same, horrifying message. A disease, they called it, that made the brain decay and the skin rot, and the living corpses that were once _people_ – people with homes and lives and families and hopes and dreams – were compelled by a single-minded drive to consume human flesh. These infected – rotters, they soon came to be called – could not be reasoned with, could not be cured… could not be saved.

They could only be killed. If they didn’t kill you first, that is.

Felix was eleven when Glenn died in what would go down in history as simply the Atrocity. Figures in black cloaks, wielding some ancient, fell magic that let them control the rotters, drove hordes of their undead army toward Fhirdiad. Thousands died in the attack. Most rose again, weaponized against their own friends and families. It lasted hours before the military was able to drive them back. Nearly every major city in Fódlan faced the same fate that day.

The image of his father rending Glenn’s head from his body with an antique decorative sword that once hung above the mantle just before he could rip into Felix’s throat would haunt him as long as he lived.

Felix was fourteen when the wall around Fhirdiad was completed. It was safe inside the walls, they said. The walls would protect them. Everyone – those who survived that long, anyway – lived in a war zone. Children were raised to be warriors. Felix could hardly remember the time before, when things were peaceful, when they didn’t face invasion by blood-thirsty undead monstrosities.

But walls can’t protect you from the enemy lurking inside of them.

Felix was seventeen when Sylvain left. They spent his last day in the safety of Fhirdiad – before he and his father had to make the long, treacherous voyage to Enbarr on order of the king – together, stealing hasty kisses, knowing it would be the last time for a very long time. They watched the sunset from under an old oak tree in Last Stand Park, a memorial dedicated to those who lost their lives in the Atrocity, marking the spot where the military set up a defensive line and prepared to make their last stand (as the name might have suggested), eventually managing to turn the tide of the battle. Glenn’s name – among the names of countless others lost – was engraved on a plaque somewhere in place of a grave stone; all of the bodies were burned, not buried, to limit the spread of the infection.

Glenn’s name – among the names of countless others lost – was also carved into the thick bark of the oak tree. Felix had done it himself. Under his name, Felix and Sylvain held tight to each others hands and watched the sun sunk below the unforgiving line of the wall.

That was the last time Felix saw Sylvain.

Felix is twenty now.

He stares out the back of the stolen military truck blankly, one knee pressed to his chest, watching the road stretch out behind them as they bounce along. Each crack and pothole jostles him and his companions and their supplies, hard enough that his teeth clatter at times. Once upon a time, the road had been new, black and smooth with freshly painted yellow lines and the smell of fresh tar thick and oppressive in the air. That likely hadn’t been in his life time.

Now it’s broken, a road in function, but long-since neglected to the point it was practically a shell of its former self. Like just about everything else that everyone had once taken for granted. Like all of the dilapidated buildings that crumble along the road, raided and squatted in and ultimately abandoned again, possibly multiple times, in the past decade. Like the rusted out tractors that had been scavenged for parts soon after the old world collapsed, stripped of anything that might have held value, and left to their fates.

A few rotters shamble out in the distance, lurking along tree lines and ambling through barren fields. They pay the fuckers no mind, too slow to be a problem unless you’re unfortunate enough to be on-foot this far out from a walled city or compound. They’re not worth the bullets it would take to kill them.

Felix is so lost in his melancholy, he doesn’t notice Ingrid appearing beside him until she puts a hand on his arm. “Have you eaten?” she asks softly, offering up a bag of jerky of dubious origin. He shakes his head, taking it when she presses it into his hand insistently. “We’ll be there soon. Maybe you should get some rest after you eat. You haven’t slept since we left.”

“I’m fine,” he huffs before tearing into a strip of the jerky. Its tough and flavorless, a means of survival, nothing more. He chews mechanically.

“Felix, you look like shit,” she sighs, ever the worrywart. Kind of like a mom, always fussing over her boys like its her job to. “You don’t have to push yourself so hard, you know.”

“I’m fine, Ing,” he insists, but there’s less of a sharp edge in his tone than there might have been a moment ago. “If I say I’ll take a nap, will you get off my back?” She smiles, ruffling his hair in the way she knows he hates, seemingly satisfied by his answer. Unaffected by his glare, she returns to her seat next to Dedue, letting her head fall against his broad shoulder and her eyes slip closed.

Felix eats slowly, letting his mind wander again as he chews through the tough, unyielding jerky. Outside, the sun is dipping low in the sky. The rotters will be getting restless, in some areas swarming in large numbers in a desperate search for victims that try to carve out an existence beyond fortified walls and barbed wire and machine guns.

He thinks of his father, burned like the rest of them after giving his life six months ago so that Felix could get Dimitri and their friends to safety. What is Fhirdiad like right now? The thought consumes him more than he likes to admit; it was the only home he’s ever known, after all.

“You’re thinking about home, aren’t you?” Dimitri asks from where he’s silently been sitting across from Felix. “Sorry. You get that look on your face when you do.”

Felix swallows down the lump of jerky that he’s been working at for the past few moments, and it sits heavily in his stomach. “The reports say she’s got Twisted mages walking around with rotters like attack dogs on leashes,” he muses. “Ready to maul anyone who steps out of line.” The thought sends a chill down his spine. Twisted… a corruption of Those Who Slither in the Dark - TWSITD - the name given to the dark, sinister magic-users who command the undead, bearing the banner of a an eye in a circle surrounded by a twisted laurel, like a serpent with many heads.

The banner that now flies over Castle Fhirdiad.

Dimitri frowns, his single blue eye luminous in the fading light. His fingers are clenched tight in the worn fabric of his jeans. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember the sweet little boy he’d once been, the _prince_ he’d once been. Dimitri had always felt like a boy set apart from the horrors of the world, bright and optimistic, poised to lead them all to brighter future once he was old enough to take the throne. Now, with his lank, overgrown hair, gnarled scar set over a now sightless milky-white eye, and a vendetta to avenge the lives lost over the past ten years, it’s like he’s finally become part of the same nightmare the rest of them lived in.

“I will admit,” Dimitri says softly, head bowed and hair falling over his eyes, “I haven’t had a night’s sleep since that day where the memory of my uncle’s head at my feet hasn’t tormented me.” Felix understands that all too well. They all do. “All these years, we listened to her counsel, took her advice to heart… treated her like family. And that’s how she repaid us.”

Felix can’t stand the look on his face, wretched and angry. He looks away, back out to the darkening fields and encroaching stars. “We’ll take Fhirdiad back.” He doesn’t know if he’s talking to Dimitri or to himself. He doesn’t even know if Dimitri can hear him.

“We’ll avenge their deaths,” Dimitri agrees.

Is that what reclaiming Fhirdiad will mean? Vengeance? Will the scores of dead care? Will they even know? Felix doesn’t ask these questions aloud, but he thinks he knows the answer, even if it’s not one Dimitri will agree with.

He’d rather avenge the living, anyhow.

Felix sets the half-eaten jerky aside, stomach tied up into too many knots to even consider another bite. Ingrid will be sad when she sees he’s not taking care of himself, but right now, she’s fast asleep against Dedue and Felix will deal with the guilt of worrying her in the morning.

He leans his head back against the hard metal side of the truck bed, the flapping of the tarp cover humming loudly in his ear. It fades into the background along with the sounds of the truck chugging along and the rattling of cargo, steady and omnipresent like his own even breathing and the beat of his heart. He lets his eyes close, arms folded over his chest like it will keep the world away while he sleeps.

It’s light when Ingrid gently shakes him awake. He groans, pushing himself up and stretching his aching neck. It pops and crackles as he moves it left to right. Ingrid is stern-faced and serious, her long, straw-colored hair pulled up in a no-nonsense ponytail. She’s already donning a faded combat vest, shotgun held in one hand.

“We’re here.”

Nodding, Felix stands, head just shy of brushing the top of the green tarp overhead. Dimitri and Dedue, being considerably taller than him, have to hunch over as they don their gear. Felix braids his hair quickly, fingers going through the practiced motions on instinct. He shoulders his own vest and the scabbard holding his sword and rifle before hopping down from the back of the truck, Ingrid right behind him.

They’re just beyond an imposing barbed-wire fence, a dirt road cutting through dense forest leading back, presumably, toward the road they’d been traveling on. Everything about their new setting screamed militarized encampment, much like the one that had served as their refuge for the past six months after the fall of Fhirdiad. Instead of a brewing rebellion, however, this compound was home to a gang of thugs and bandits just trying to scrape by in a fucked up world.

The soldiers who accompanied them give him a curt nod, pacing anxiously with their own guns held tight at the ready. Crowding around them are a half dozen people unfamiliar to Felix. They eye the newcomers with some combination of intrigue and distrust. It unsettles Felix, being so horribly outnumbered in potentially hostile territory, but it was prudent coming with such a small number. Too many, and they may have been perceived as threats.

Dimitri and Dedue clamber out of the truck. The prince stands before the assembled men and women, tall and broad, cutting an imposing figure even in jeans and a ratty t-shirt. A machete hangs off his left hip, a handgun holstered on the opposite thigh. He reaches for neither.

“Thank you for allowing us entry,” he addresses their hosts. “We are most grateful you’ve agreed to grant us a meeting.” The thugs snicker at Dimitri’s prim-and-proper spiel, one relic of his royal upbringing, something that hadn’t changed even as the world around them had. “Would you be so kind as to lead us to your leader?”

A woman with a stout build and a dark, scarred complexion steps forward, rifle at her side. She jerks her head in a motion for them to follow. Dimitri signals for the two soldiers to stay behind with the truck, and the four of them follow after the woman.

“Might I ask your name?” Dimitri asks politely as she leads them through the compound, past worn-down trucks and malnourished troops going about their business. Felix isn’t paying much attention to their guide, taking in the layout of the compound. Beyond the… for lack of a better word, courtyard, are a series of garages and sheds. And past them, he can see men and women with bare, sun-burned backs working fields under the watchful eye of armed guards.

“Kana,” the woman grunts. “No need to ask your name, _your highness_.” It’s said with a sneer. She glances at the other three. “And I don’t really give a fuck about the rest of you.”

“Likewise,” Felix hears Ingrid snort under her breath.

Kana leads them into the largest building on the compound, a squat, gray building with reinforced doors and few windows. The hum of generators permeates the complex, powering the dull, bare bulbs that flicker overhead. The passages twist and turn, making it hard to tell where they are going as they wind their way through. Felix tries to map landmarks in his mind, a change of architecture here where this part of the building was built at a different time, a peculiar crack in the wall or water stain on the ceiling there. As they walk, people go about their business, chatting and working, just like anywhere else in the world. They pay the passers-by little mind.

Kana stops outside a heavy-looking wooden door, a guard with a rifle stationed outside. “The boss is waiting for you in here.”

“Thank you, Kana,” Dimitri says, bowing his head respectfully. She just rolls her eyes, turning away. The guard raps three times on the door.

“Enter,” a deep voice calls from the other side. The guard pushes the door open and ushers them in.

Miklan Gautier is unmistakable, sitting at the end of a rough wooden table in a plush chair, its upholstery worn and faded in places. He lounges back like a king on a throne, arms rested comfortably on the arms of the chair, eyes half-lidded. He looks mostly like Felix remembers him, save for the addition of a nasty, puckered scar running from his right brow, over the ridge of his nose, and ending on his left cheek. His hair is the same wild, unkempt mess of red it had been nearly five years ago.

Dimitri opens his mouth to speak, but a strange sound makes his words die in his throat. They stare at Miklan in confusion, trying to work out the meaning of the lewd, slick sounds that fill the room. When Felix catches the sight of a pair of grubby bare feet and the tattered hem of a red dress under the table in front of Miklan, realization dawns over him.

Someone is sucking him off under the table.

And he’d invited them in anyway.

Dimitri seems to realize this too, the tips of his ears flushing pink. “Er… we’re sorry to interrupt… Should we come back… at a later time?”

The slick sound stop, just for a second before Miklan’s hand disappears under the table. Felix is disturbed by the choking, gagging sound that follows, just for a moment before whoever is giving him a blow job recovers themselves, and the slick sounds return.

“Don’t mind my little princess here,” he dismisses with a barking laugh. “The slut’s used to having an audience.” The sounds don’t falter this time. Felix had known, of course, what a sorry excuse for a man Miklan’s always been. What else could you call a man who left a dozen of his comrades behind to get devoured by rotters to save his own skin? He’d been exiled from Fhirdiad for his crimes, and this is where he ended up: a repulsive leader to a band of thugs, beginning to boarder more on the line of warlord than bandit. “Sit.”

There is a weight to his command that they can’t refuse. They are, after all, guests in his ‘house.’ It would be suicide to piss him off this early in their visit, when he could still very easily decide that it was much less hassle to kill them than negotiate.

They take up the empty seats around his table. Felix pointedly refuses to look at the person under the table, tries to block out their vulgar sounds, tries not to think about what had happened to them that they ended up on their knees at the service of Miklan Gautier.

“It’s been a long time, your highness,” Miklan muses pleasantly. He regards Dedue coolly. “I see you’ve got a Duscur dog now.” If Dedue is affected by Miklan’s words, he doesn’t show it. Beside him, Felix sees Ingrid struggling to keep herself from bristling at the insult to her betrothed. “Ingrid. _Felix._ ” He doesn’t like the way Miklan emphasized his own name, and can’t help but wonder at the meaning behind it.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Miklan,” Dimitri says cordially, though his cheeks are still rather flushed at the sexual acts being blatantly flaunted, always kind of a pure, innocent soul. “I’m sure you’ve heard the news of Fhirdiad’s fall-”

“Of course,” the man booms, a grin splitting his face. “Good riddance.” Of course, he would have no love lost for the city that had exiled him into the dangerous world outside the walls (even if it was his own fault).

“With my uncle dead, Cornelia has taken control of the city. Given what has happened, we’ve come to realize that she’s been under the influence of the Twisted mages for some time, perhaps since the beginning.” Dimitri’s embarrassment seems to have passed now that he’s got serious matters to focus on. His voice drowns out the sounds of the blow job. “She’s allowed them the run of the city. There are reports that the mages have even brought rotters into the city, and have been using them to silence any dissenters.”

Miklan cocks his head to the side, bored and uninterested. “What’s all of this got to do with me?” he snorts. “I don’t give two shits what happens to Fhirdiad. All I care about is me and my own.” He glances down at his lap, hand disappearing below once again. “Hurry it up, would you? Good for nothing whore.” The person chokes once more, just for a moment. The lewd sounds grow quicker.

Disgust roils in Felix’s stomach, and based on the barely restrained faces around him, he’s not the only one.

“It was my thought that we might be able to come to a mutually beneficial arrangement,” Dimitri manages, carefully schooling his voice into a semblance of neutrality. “If you are willing to aid my efforts to reclaim Fhirdiad, I assure you, once I take my rightful place on the throne, I will make it worth your while.”

Miklan regards him for a moment. His eyelids flutter a little, a soft sigh escaping his lips, and Felix can just make out the way his hips cant ever so slightly into the mouth around him. Pig. “That sounds like a lot of empty promises and what ifs from where I’m sitting.”

“It is something we are eager to negotiate, if you will allow us.”

“Fuck,” the man grunts, no longer paying them any attention. His eyes squeeze shut, and it’s very obvious what he’s doing when his hands both sink under the table, jerking his hips. They look away, disgusted and disturbed, as he cums. The gross, vulgar sounds finally stop, replaced by Miklan’s heavy pants.

A moment later, he straightens, hauling the person up from under the table and into his lap. When Felix finally dares a look over, his heart freezes in his chest.

His hair is longer, lank, his cheeks sallow and gaunt… and his eyes are empty. He doesn’t look at Felix, but it’s purposeful, like looking at him is akin to running a serrated blade between his own ribs. Felix knows this, because it’s exactly how he feels, unable to peel his eyes away, unable to remove the knife from his own broken heart.

Sylvain is alive.

Sylvain has been alive this whole time.

Sylvain has been living his life, raped by Miklan, his own brother.

The silence in the room is palpable, so thick one could cut it with a knife. Felix wants to cry, wants to reach out and take Sylvain as far from this place as possible, wants to do unspeakable things to make Miklan pay.

He can do none of those things.

He can barely breathe.

“Where were we?” Miklan muses, absently groping at Sylvain through the thin, washed-out red fabric of the dress that clings to his frame, acting as if he’s oblivious to the aghast faces all fixed on their long-lost friend, who they’d thought has been dead for the past three years, just another body among the shambling hordes. “Negotiations. Right. Before we get into all of that, where are my manners? Allow me to show you around my humble abode.”

He shoves Sylvain to his feet, standing up after him and gesturing for the rest to follow him. Sylvain stares at the cold, dirty floor as he trails behind his brother, the hem of the dress fluttering around his calves. Felix doesn’t hear a word out of Miklan’s mouth as he points out the places of interest in his compound, proudly as if it were a grand castle rather than a run-down, makeshift fortress.

It feels like forever before he leads them out into the sunlight once more. He shows them by their well-grown fields. Felix now wonders if the people tending them are slaves, forced against their will to do the manual labor (Miklan wouldn’t be the only bandit/warlord using slave labor, if the rumors were to be believed, though Felix had never seen it for himself).

“And for my favorite part,” Miklan announces, coming to a stop at a crude wooden fence that blocks off a deep pit in the ground. He leans casually against the railing, inviting the others to look over the edge. Inside, a rotter shambles around, groaning. The long hair and swell of mangled flesh over the chest suggests it had once been a woman. A heavy metal collar is latched around her neck, securing her to a sturdy chain that’s connected to a wench.

“What is this?” Dimitri wonders, brow furrowed.

Miklan grins a terrible grin, gesturing for an armed guard to join them. “You got the traitor ready?” he demands.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, why don’t we give our guests a show, then?” Felix’s stomach drops in cold dread as the man nods and hastens off to a nearby shed-like building. Sylvain rests his elbows on the railing, staring absently down into the pit with unblinking eyes.

A moment later, the man returns. He’s accompanied by another guard, and between them, they drag a third man dressed in tattered rags. His face is filthy, and he’s pale and thin as death. He digs his feet into the ground as they haul him closer. Screams and pleas ring out across the compound; he’s begging for his life.

They bring the man to a stop in front of Miklan, roughly shoving him to his knees and yanking his head back by the hair. Tears streak down his cheeks. “Please,” he begs, sobbing, “I’m sorry, boss. I swear, I’ll never do it again. Please, please, don’t… d-don’t do this.”

Miklan just laughs and jerks his chin toward the pit. The man wails as he’s dragged toward the edge. All they can do is watch in horror, hands clenched around the rough wooden railing, as he’s dropped unceremoniously over the edge, landing in a heap on the hard dirt at least ten feet below.

Miklan watches with a sickening amusement as the rotter catches his scent, her head jerking toward him like a feral animal. She growls, straining against the chain to get toward the new, warm body that’s been dropped into her clutches. The man curls up in a ball, sobbing.

Men and women alike laugh around them, gathering to see the ‘show.’ One guard takes up position at the wench, slowly cranking the handle. Inch by inch, the chain keeping the rotter at bay grows longer, letting her get closer to the doomed man.

Felix wants to vomit. All he can see, even as he watches her slowly trudging forward, is Glenn’s face, bloody and pale, eyes dead, blood still oozing from the bite on his shoulder. Groaning as he stalked closer and closer… until his head fell into Felix’s lap. His body falling next to him with a dull thud. Their father sobbing over them, collapsing to his knees in anguish.

The scream as the rotter rips into the man’s flesh is sickeningly familiar.

It’s hardly the first time any of them have seen someone fall to one of the corpses, but seeing it happen at the hands of another living, breathing _person_ , someone who wasn’t a Twisted mage who marched the undead into battle… it's beyond fucked. Felix is sure there's a special place in hell for a person like Miklan… no, there has to be somewhere worse than hell, a pit so deep and dark and terrible even the devil himself shudders at the thought.

The cheers and applauds that follow, drowning out the man’s blood-curdling screams, threaten to turn Felix’s stomach.

Miklan claps Dimitri on the back like he’s an old friend. “Now that we’ve got all the formalities out of the way, why don’t we get to those negotiations?”

None of them are stupid enough to miss the point of this little show. It was a threat. Fuck me over, Miklan said without using a single word, and you’re next.

“Of course,” Dimitri manages, face a hard mask.

Miklan starts back the way they came, but pauses, turning toward Felix. “I think you and my brother might have some catching up to do,” he muses, winking at Sylvain, “eh, Sylvie?” Sylvain nods curtly. “Why don’t you two meet us for dinner?”

“Alright,” Sylvain mutters, voice devoid of any life.

He leans in close to Felix, throwing an arm over his shoulder and leaning in to whisper in his ear. “Feel free to use him however you like, Felix,” he offers, making Felix’s heart break even further, despite being dust in his chest already. “He’ll show you a good time.” With a laugh, he leads the others away.

Sylvain doesn’t move from his spot against the railing, eyes still blankly fixed on the man being eaten below. His screams have since stopped, and he isn’t moving anymore. Felix leans next to him, a million questions burning on his tongue. He longs to reach out and touch Sylvain, but he’s afraid the boy he’d once loved so much might crumble to ash if he does.

“I didn’t ever want you to see me like this,” Sylvain sighs, hanging his head. Felix can just see the track of a tear rolling down his cheek.

“What happened, Syl?”

He’s silent long enough Felix thinks he won’t answer. “Our convoy never made it to Enbarr. Miklan’s gang ambushed us. He didn’t know Dad and I were there, just rotten luck.” He swallows hard. “They slaughtered all the soldiers accompanying us and brought us back here. It was smaller then, not as many people.”

He falls silent, licking his parched lips, gathering his thoughts. “Dad tried bartering for our lives, promising him anything and everything he could think of, even things we all knew he couldn’t deliver on. When Miklan suggested he would let Dad go if he could keep me… Dad jumped on it.” His voice cracks. “He watched Miklan rape me right then and there without a word, just because Miklan wanted to test if he was bluffing.”

“Fucking Christ.” Sylvain falls silent. “What happened to your dad?”

Sylvain lifts his eyes, red and shiny with tears, to meet Felix’s for the first time since they’d been in each other’s presence. His gaze is cold and hard for a long moment, before he drops it pointedly back to the rotter still busy stuffing her face with chunks of bloody flesh and viscera.

Miklan had fed his own father to a rotter.

“He told me if I ever disobey him, or try to run, he’ll do the same to me.” Felix isn’t sure, if the roles were reversed, if he wouldn’t prefer death.

“I won’t let that happen,” Felix swears, nails digging into the wooden railing, heedless of the splinters that poke into his flesh. “I’ll get you out of here.”

“Shut up,” Sylvain hisses, anxiously casting glances over his shoulders. “Don’t say things like that, Felix. If anyone hears you, he’ll find out.”

"Sorry."

Sylvain glances at him again. "Forget about me, Felix." Felix opens his mouth to protest, but he's cut off with a heart-rendingly resigned look. "There's no crossing Miklan. If you try to help me, he'll just kill us both. Maybe Dimitri and Ingrid and the Duscur man, too. You're better off leaving me and moving on. You already thought I was dead. I mean, I pretty much am anyway. Nothing changes."

Felix shakes his head. “I don’t care. If I’d known you were here, that he was…” His voice breaks, dangerously close to a sob. Dangerously close to tears. “I would have come a long time ago.”

Sylvain smiles sadly, not even close to reaching his eyes. “I know you would have.” He runs a hand through his limp hair. Even that, once so vibrantly red, seems dull and lifeless, though Felix thinks that might just be the dirt. “Come on, let’s go somewhere quiet.”

Grabbing him by the hand – his feeling horribly fragile and bony in Felix's – Sylvain takes him inside the compound. The people that had once milled around and ignored the newcomers now jeer and whistle and grope as Sylvain passes, a few making crude remarks on how _lucky_ Felix is to get Sylvain. He wants to run his sword through each and every one of them, but the comments don’t seem to phase Sylvain.

They enter into a section of the compound Felix hasn’t seen yet, nicer than the rest, with brighter light bulbs and less worn furnishings, more heavily guarded. “Miklan’s private wing,” Sylvain offers as an explanation for the question Felix hadn’t asked. Two guards let them pass into an impressive double door.

A fine bed sits in the middle of a spacious room, with some furnishing nicer than some Felix had seen in the comfort of Fhirdiad. Plundered from God only knows where. Felix guesses it’s Miklan’s room. Sylvain doesn’t pause in this room, leading him straight through a smaller door near the back.

This room is comfortably small, with a fairly nice bed, a desk with a lamp, and a bookshelf with a selection of well-kept books. Sylvain flicks on the lamp, casting the room in a warm glow, and gestures for Felix to sit on the bed.

“This is my room,” he offers lamely, sitting next to Felix, their shoulders barely bumping. Felix tries not to let himself focus on the implication of it basically being a closet in Miklan’s room. Neither speak for a long time, just stare at the gray wall. Sylvain winds his hand through Felix’s again, squeezing tight. If Felix closes his eyes, he can _almost_ imagine being seventeen again, back in Fhirdiad, sitting on a bench in the park and watching people pass by in a warm, shared silence. “Did you… move on after I left?” Sylvain’s voice is very small, hardly over a whisper. “With someone else, I mean?”

“No.”

“I wish you would have.”

“How could I?” he wonders. “I loved you…. I love you. Still.”

“….Can I kiss you?”

“If you want to.”

Sylvain’s hand on his chin is foreign and familiar all at the same time as he tips Felix’s face toward his own. His eyes are already closed, probably for the best because Felix isn’t sure he can handle the void, dead look in them. He closes his own eyes.

The lips that meet his are rough and chapped, and his breath is sour, but Felix doesn’t care. He kisses Sylvain gently, keeping his hands to himself despite wanting to reach out and run his hands over him like he’d done hundreds of time. The only points of contact are their lips moving together and Sylvain’s hand still cupping his face lightly.

Sylvain is crying when he breaks the kiss, eyes blinking open slowly, now so full of pain and sadness that it felt like Felix might suffocate in it. “Don’t leave me,” he begs, fingers winding desperately into Felix’s sleeves.

“I won’t,” he promises. Felix doesn’t know how long they stay there, Sylvain’s face buried against Felix’s chest, tears staining his combat vest. Just holding each other.

Just crying together.


	2. Chapter 2

They end up laying back on Sylvain’s bed, though it’s not really meant for two grown men to fit comfortably. Felix’s vest is discarded on the floor, his weapons out of arm’s reach for the first time in a long time. Sylvain is curled up against his side, holding on like he’s worried Felix will float away if he lets go.

Sylvain has stopped crying, they both have. Instead, he prompts Felix to answer question after question, some hard, some painful, some inane. What’s been happening to such-and-such. Has this person survived? Who is the Duscur man that they brought with them?

“What happened in Fhirdiad?”

It’s asked so simply, Sylvain unaware of the horror of that day, the loss and the pain. A lump forms in Felix’s throat as he tries to figure out how to answer. “Cornelia staged a coup. Dimitri’s uncle Rufus had been acting as regent for the past year and a half, since the king and queen died of the Rot Cough-”

“Rot Cough?”

That’s right, Sylvain was already gone by the time that outbreak started. “It’s a kind of pneumonia, I think, that sort of… merged with the rotter infection,” he tries to explain, though he barely understands the specifics of it himself. “Instead of making your skin rot and killing you quickly, it’s really slow. Rots you from the inside out first, starting with the lungs.”

“That sounds terrible.”

“It’s… not pretty,” he agrees. “Right at the end, some people even start coughing up chunks of their lungs before they manage to die. And you can’t help them, because it’s super contagious. All you can do is make them comfortable before the communicability period starts and burn them before they rise.”

“And Dima lost his parents to that?” Felix nods slowly. “So, what happened with Cornelia?”

“She let Twisted mages into the city, helped them infiltrate the castle. By the time anyone realized what was happening, the castle was swarming with rotters. She beheaded Rufus, right in front of Dimitri.

“We barely managed to get him out before she could kill him too. Though, he did end up losing an eye in the invasion.” Felix closes his eyes against the memories. “We were outnumbered. Dad stayed behind to give us a chance to escape.”

“I’m so sorry, Felix.”

“He would have considered it an honor to give his life to save Dimitri,” he says blandly.

“And you.”

Felix isn’t too sure about that. It hangs in the air a second too long before Felix speaks again. “We managed to escape the city with a few of the remaining Royal Guard. Ended up seeking shelter from a paramilitary group that spit off from Fhirdiad about five years ago. They’ve been helping us gather supplies and troops to retake Fhirdiad.”

Sylvain is silent for a long time. “It was selfish of me to ask you not to leave me,” he sighs, so quiet Felix almost didn’t hear it. “All it’s going to do is get you killed.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Felix insists, anger burning white-hot in his chest – not at Sylvain, of course, but at Miklan. “I don’t care what it takes. You’re leaving with us.”

“I don’t know why you would even want me back,” he mutters, sounding so miserable and wretched, and Felix feels completely helpless – a feeling that’s actually pretty foreign to him. And besides, he’s a soldier… more or less. Long gone is the over-emotional little crybaby he used to be. All this to say, emotions aren’t exactly his strong suit. How can he possibly hope to help someone who’s gone through what Sylvain has? “Even if we get away, it won’t be like it was. Before. I’m not…” His words falter.

“Nothing’s like it was before. Not you, not me, not the whole fucking world.” He presses a soft kiss into Sylvain’s filthy hair. “All I care about is that you’re you and that you’re not here anymore.”

Before Sylvain can respond, a low, droning bell tolls from somewhere in the compound, reverberating through the concrete walls. Sylvain sighs, pushing himself up. “That’s the dinner bell. We should go.”

Felix pulls his vest back on hastily and follows Sylvain back out through Miklan’s room and into the hallway. They wind through the halls, passing people who joke and jeer, eager to eat. They split off from the masses gathering in a large mess hall. Sylvain leads him back to the room where they first met Miklan.

Dimitri, Ingrid, and Dedue are seated at the table headed by Miklan, a single empty seat waiting for him next to Ingrid. He sinks into it without a word, trying not to stare as Sylvain continues around the table and kneels next to Miklan’s chair. On the cold, hard concrete floor. He grits his teeth to keep from exploding.

Miklan rolls his eyes, jerking Sylvain up by the bicep and pulling him into his lap. “We can’t have you sitting on the floor like a fucking mutt begging for scraps, princess,” he scolds, hands smoothing down his sides in a bastardization of tenderness. “Did you show Felix a good time?”

Sylvain bites his lips for a moment, just to keep it from quivering. He leans in to whisper something in Miklan’s ear, something that makes the older man’s eyes darken. For a moment, Felix thinks he’s going to hit Sylvain. He’s going to hit him, and Felix is going to snap and run him through with his sword, then they’re all going to die when Miklan’s thugs realize they’ve just murdered their leader.

But he doesn’t hit Sylvain, he shoves him off his lap in disgust. “Worthless whore,” he grunts. “I gave you the whole afternoon to do _one thing_ , and you can’t even get that right?” Sylvain flinches away. “Get out of my sight. And you’d better make up for the lost time, _princess_.”

Without wasting a second, Sylvain darts out of the room.

Ingrid squeezes Felix’s hand under the table.

“Sorry about that,” Miklan dismisses, an easy grin on his face. None of them say anything as plates of steaming food are brought in and placed in front of each of them. It’s far from the worst meal Felix has seen recently, with a thick slab of some unknown animal, still red and bloody, and a smattering of root vegetables on the side. The water they are give is dubious, but water is water, and if _that_ – after everything they’ve experienced – is what ends up killing them, so be it.

It all tastes like ash in Felix’s mouth anyway.

Miklan keeps up a stream of unfunny and sometimes vile jokes through dinner, seemingly unbothered by their silence. When dinner is finished, he calls in a guard to escort them to the room he’s ‘generously’ provided for them to sleep in. They follow along in silence, Felix trailing behind. As they walk, a strange sound catches Felix’s ear, a rhythmic slapping coming from an open door they just passed.

Felix pauses, slowly stepping backwards. No one notices that he falls behind. The room is dim, with a few ratty sofas, some old weight sets, and a worn-out pool table. Some sort of rec room. That’s the farthest thing from Felix’s mind, though, as he slowly processes what he’s seeing.

Bent over the pool table, the hem of his dress pulled up over his hips, is Sylvain. The slapping sound, he’s disgusted to realize, is some man fucking him from behind, one hand wound tight in his hair, the other keeping his hips still. On the exposed buttock facing Felix, he can just make out the crude shape of an M burned into his flesh.

Felix sees red.

His hand reaches for his sword, feet carrying him slowly forward. Before he can so much as cross the threshold into the room, he’s grabbed by the bicep and yanked away, back hitting the opposite wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. A hand is pressed over his mouth before he can shout or swear.

Kana, their guide from before, stares at him with blazing eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hisses. “Do you want to get him in even more trouble?”

His brow furrows. “What are you talking about?” he demands as soon as she frees his mouth.

With a sigh, she grabs him by the wrist and drags him down the hallway. They pass a person or two, but no one pays them any mind as she roughly shoves him into an empty room. A storage closet, by the looks of things.

“You’re his friend, right?” she huffs once the door is shut behind them. “Sylvain’s?”

“What do you care?”

“I care enough,” she snaps. “I know you’re angry, but trust me, stopping that won’t help him.” She crosses her arms, leaning heavily against the door. “You’d just be making it worse.”

“Worse than being raped,” he mutters, incredulous.

Her eyes are sad. “It’s not like it’s anything new.” He opens his mouth to speak, but she cuts him off. “Don’t you get it? He got in trouble. That’s his punishment.” As if he were a misbehaving child being sent to timeout.

“What did he ‘get in trouble’ for?”

She fixes him with an even look. “Not fucking you.” His stomach drops to his boots. “Miklan sent him off with you earlier, right? Told you to have your way with him?” He manages a single, sharp nod. “You were supposed to fuck him. You didn’t. Miklan _knew_ you wouldn’t. He set Sylvain up to fail so he could punish him. And if you’d intervened, it would have given Miklan an excuse to punish him _worse_.”

Felix feels sick, sinking down onto an overturned bucket and burying his head in his hands. “He could have lied-”

“Miklan knows you wouldn’t have fucked him,” she reminds him with surprising softness. “He would have seen right through it. Then Sylvain would have been in trouble for lying.”

“How do you know any of this?” he huffs, glaring up at her. “I’m supposed to just take your word for it, I suppose?”

“Believe what you want,” she says with a shrug. “This may come as a shock to you, but not all of us like the way that bastard runs things. And Sylvain’s a good kid. He doesn’t deserve what’s done to him.”

He considers this for a moment. “If you don’t like it here, why don’t you leave?”

She sighs again, winding a finger with a strand of her long, dark hair. “Well, you saw what happened to the last guy who tried to leave.” He started to protest that, no, he hadn’t, but the realization hits him like a brick. The poor man they watched get fed to a rotter. The traitor, as Miklan had called him. “Miklan takes any opportunity to show that _he’s_ the one in charge and that there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him. Gets off on it, I think.”

“If everyone who doesn’t like it here ran together, he wouldn’t be able to stop all of you.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Just, no one wants to be the poor fuck who he _does_ stop.” She shakes her head slowly. “Fear’s a powerful motivator. There are families here. Kids. For some people, putting up with a psychopath is a small price to pay for the guarantee safety from the rotters and food in your stomach.”

“I’m not leaving here without Sylvain,” he tells her simply.

“I figured you’d say something like that.” She flashes him a small, sad smile. “If you get caught, you realize he’ll probably kill him. And you, too.”

“I have to try. I can’t leave him here.”

“If your mind’s made up, then… I’ll help you.”

He stares at her for a long moment. “Why?” She arches an eyebrow, head cocked to the side. “If everyone’s so afraid of getting caught defying Miklan, why risk helping me?”

“I already told you, Sylvain doesn’t deserve this.” She frowns, staring at the floor. “I was already here when Miklan captured him. The whole thing was terrible. Their own dad just sat and watched without even the _hint_ of emotion as Miklan raped him. Watched Miklan take a brand to him without flinching. Nothing. All he cared about was saving himself. Then he forced Sylvain to watch the man go into the pit.

“And us,” she muses. “We all just sat back and let it happen. None of us wanted to be the one to piss him off for the sake of some kid we didn’t know. Of course, a lot of sick fucks jumped on it, joined in once Miklan started whoring him out to anyone who wanted him.”

There’s a knot in Felix’s stomach as he listens, and he’s desperate to turn the conversation to something else. “Do you have any idea how we can get him out of here without Miklan knowing?”

“Well, there are no guarantees,” she warns him, “but I’ve got some buddies who I trust, guys who would be willing to help Sylvain. From what I heard, the plan for tomorrow is to load up the supplies your pals arranged with Miklan and send you on your way by midday. Miklan thinks too highly of himself to have anything personally to do with it. I’ll get one of my buddies to drag Sylvain into the storehouse on the pretense of wanting a quickie and have him load him into one of the storage crates we’re sending with you guys. Then you just wait until you’re out of sight to pull him out. As long as you guys don’t show your faces in these parts again, I don’t think you’ll have too much to worry about.”

It’s… simple, but if Kana thinks it will work, Felix has to try. “Thank you. This means-”

“Save it, kid,” she dismisses. “I don’t do sap.” She peels herself away from the wall and peers out into the hallway. “Come on, I’ll take you to your friends.”

By the time they pass the rec room, Sylvain and the other man are gone.

Felix fights the urge to squirm under the gazes of his friends, all staring at him as if he’s grown a second head after explaining Kana’s plan to them. They are in the privacy of the room assigned to them by Miklan, voices hushed lest someone happening by manages to catch their conversation. “Felix,” Ingrid says evenly, “you can’t honestly _trust_ her. You know that right?” He sighs, rubbing his temples roughly in a vain attempt to stave off the headache he can feel budding behind his eyes.

“Ingrid is right,” Dedue agrees, because of course he does. “It is very likely that this is a trap set up by Miklan.”

“I don’t care,” he huffs, crossing his arms.

“Felix-” Dimitri starts, but he stops short under Felix’s glare.

“I. Don’t. Care.” He looks between the three of them as if daring them to say another word. “I’m not leaving Sylvain here to keep being raped and God only knows what else.”

“That’s not what we were suggesting,” Ingrid says quickly. “But don’t you think it’s kind of reckless to trust someone here to help us?”

“What other choice do we have?” None of them speak, shifting uncomfortably as they spare each other concerned glances. “From where I’m standing, there are no other options if we want to leave without trying to fight our way out, and we all know how well that would go.”

“It’s going to be very dangerous,” Dimitri sighs.

“So what? Everything is dangerous,” he scoffs. He can’t believe that they’re honestly arguing with him about this. Sylvain is their friend, too – well, except Dedue, as they’d only met the man after Sylvain had already gone. “This might be our only chance to save him. Don’t we owe it to him to take it?”

“Of course,” Ingrid says gently. “But it won’t do Sylvain or anyone any good if we all get ourselves killed doing it. If we die, who’s going to reclaim Fhird…” The weight of his glare makes her words die in her throat, shrinking back away from him as she realized what her words implied; that saving Sylvain was less important that saving Fhirdiad. “That came out wrong.”

“Yeah,” he huffs. “It did.”

Dedue puts his hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “Do you believe we can trust Kana?” he asks evenly. “Do you think she truly means to help us?”

He considers it for a moment, sinking down onto the edge of one of the cots provided for them in the small room they’ve been offered. “She seemed sincere when I spoke to her,” he decides. “I don’t think she intends to sell us out to Miklan. I can’t say I trust her, per se, but I trust that she’s not trying to fuck us.”

Dedue nods. “And I trust your judgment.” He glances between Ingrid and Dimitri. “I do not know Sylvain, but I know how much he means to all of you, and I know that what he suffers here no person should have to suffer. I think we should do what we can to help him, even if it means relying on Kana.”

There is resolve in Dimitri’s eyes. “Of course. It should have never been a question.” He bows his head to Felix. “We must do what we can to bring him home.”

They look to Ingrid. “I’m with you,” she says, “of course I am. All I ask is that we be vigilant, not let our guard down. Especially when it comes to Kana.”

Tears prick in the corners of Felix’s eyes, and it’s only the decade of practice staving them off that keeps them from spilling. “Thank you, guys,” is all he can manage, voice thick.

Felix taps his foot impatiently. It’s nearing noon and the crates bound for the back of the military trucks they brought are nearly full. He stands with Kana in a cramped storehouse, leaning against the rusting corrugated siding with his arms crossed.

Her friend, Eric, should have been there by now. A million awful, worst-case scenarios play themselves on loop in Felix’s brain, unwanted and unbidden. He grits his teeth against them, trying to focus only on the door he stands across from as if he can make it open – with Eric and Sylvain waiting behind it – out of sheer force of will.

Beside him, Kana is stern-faced but otherwise unbothered by their tardiness. “Relax, kid,” she snaps. “Your worrying is setting my teeth on edge.”

“Sorry,” he scoffs. “They’re late.”

“I told Eric to avoid drawing too much attention,” she reminds him. “And Sylvain doesn’t know what’s going on.”

They lapse back into silence, Felix trying his hardest to squash down the rising tide of panic sloshing around in his chest, trying not to drown in the what-ifs and hypotheticals. All they can do is wait.

When, at long last, the door creaks open, he shoots up straight, hands balled into fists so tight his knuckles are white. The familiar mop of dirty red hair is the first thing he sees as Sylvain is ushered in, a pair of arms around him groping through his dress. Before Felix can feel the bubble of rage burst inside him, the door is shut behind the pair and Sylvain is freed from his grasp.

The man behind Sylvain – Eric, Felix presumes – is short with a stout build, with graying black hair and an unkempt beard. He notices Felix’s death glare and holds up his palms in a show of peace. “Sorry,” he mutters, “I had to make it look convincing, right?”

“Don’t mind the kid,” Kana dismisses, peeling herself off the spot against the wall next to Felix she’d been occupying. Her eyes fall on Sylvain, anxiously glancing between the three of them as he struggles to put together what’s happening. “You can relax, Sylvain. Sorry Eric had to drag you here like that, but like he said, it had to be convincing.”

“What’s going on?” he wonders, tongue darting out to lick at his chapped lips.

“You’re leaving with Felix.”

His eyes fall on Felix, wide and almost… terrified. “You’re seriously going to try and take me with you?” As if he can scarcely believe it. “Felix, you-”

“I told you I wasn’t leaving without you.” He moves to Sylvain slowly, wanting so badly to reach out and hold him.

“You need to get in this box,” Kana says bluntly, getting straight to the point and gesturing toward a large crate sitting among a few others already loaded with supplies. It’s spray-painted with the code X-29. “We’re going to move you onto their truck with the supply crates. They’ll get you out once you’re away from here.” He eyes the crate nervously. “You’ll have to be very quiet. The only ones who know you’ll be in there are the three of us and Felix’s friends. Do you understand?”

He swallows hard. “Felix,” he says softly, “if we get caught… I’m not worth you dying over.” Felix’s heart cracks at the dead tone of his voice.

He takes Sylvain’s hand, forgetting for a moment that they’re not the only ones in the room. “Yes. You are.” He can see the tears pooling in Sylvain’s eyes. “Please. Get in the box.” Sylvain hesitates, lip caught between his teeth, eyes flicking between Felix and the crate. “You have to trust me.”

“I do.” He draws himself up, taking a shuddering breath. With a final squeeze to Felix’s hand, he lowers himself into the open crate, folding himself into a ball and nestling among the blankets that line the rough wood. Kana tosses another blanket over him.

“Remember,” she says very seriously, already picking up the lid, “not a sound.”

“I know.”

She starts driving nails into the lid with a rusted hammer. Felix’s stomach ties itself in knots, trying very hard to shake off the notion of a coffin being nailed shut instead. He lays his hand over the wooden lid when she’s finished. The crate, not so sturdily made, has a few gaps between the lid and the walls, not enough to be able to see Sylvain, but enough that he can breathe. “We’ll be out of here soon,” he promises.

Eric disappears for a moment to get help moving the last of the crates.

No one is paying them any particular mind as they haul the crates to the trucks waiting near the gate of the compound. Freedom is so close, Felix can taste it. The soldiers start lifting the crates into the beds of the trucks, helped by the four of them.

With only a handful left, Miklan comes out to see them off, grinning broadly. “You guys got everything you need?” he asks pleasantly, coming to a stop by the last of the crates. Felix tries not to focus on X-29, tries not the stare at it as Miklan draws near.

“Yes, thank you,” Dimitri says cordially. “We are nearly finished loading up, and then we will be on our way. Thank you again for your aid. It is much appreciated.”

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” he dismisses easily. His smile drops to something a bit more scrutinizing as he looks between the four of them. “I do have… one thing that’s bothering me.”

They share a look, faces schooled into a careful mask of nonchalance. “And what would that be?” Dimitri wonders.

“A little birdie suggested you might be trying to leave with something that doesn’t belong to you.” His blood turns to ice in his veins. Among the people milling around, either doing their jobs or watching the visitors go about their business, Felix spots Kana. Next to her, a woman with chestnut hair holds tight to her hand. Kana meets his eyes, her own wide. She doesn’t know what’s going on either, he realizes.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Dimitri lies, quite convincingly. “We’ve only taken the supplies gathered by your people. We had little to do with their packing. If something is amiss, I assure you we have no knowledge of it.”

Miklan’s eyes narrow. “Is that so?” he scoffs. “You know what pisses me off, Your Highness? Fucking. Liars.” A crowd has amassed by this point, titters of excitement and confusion murmuring from ear to ear. Felix sees Eric in the back, arms crossed, shifting anxiously. He glances at Felix before his eyes drop to the ground, unable to meet his gaze. A man with a guilty conscience?

“Miklan,” Dimitri tries, voice dripping with well-practiced diplomacy, “whatever you’ve been told-”

“Stuff it,” he growls, the ferocity of his voice making Dimitri fall silent. “We both know you’re full of shit. My little birdie told me that the property you’re trying to steal is in crate X-29. Are you going to tell me my birdie is mistaken?” Felix’s heart drops from his chest. Any hope they had is dashed. They failed.

Miklan doesn’t wait for an answer, he gestures over a group of his armed guards. Four of them surround Felix and the others, holding them at gunpoint and demanding they drop their weapons on the ground. They comply. A fifth man stops next to Miklan. In his hand is a dented metal can, its red paint chipping off in places. On Miklan’s command, he starts pouring the contents over the crate Sylvain is sealed inside, thick black liquid spilling over the wood. An acrid scent hits Felix’s nose.

Gasoline.

Miklan pulls out an old Zippo. Felix feels like he’s frozen as Miklan stands over Sylvain’s crate, the flame of the lighter sparking to life. His mouth feels like sandpaper, and it feels like his lungs have forgotten how to work. Dimitri hides his fear well. “Surely you wouldn’t burn your own supplies,” he says evenly, trying to talk Miklan down. “Even if you have reason to think we’ve stolen them-”

“It’s my shit,” he says with a shrug. “I can do whatever the fuck I want with it.”

He holds the lighter over the crate. They stare in barely concealed horror as he releases a finger at a time until the lighter is held only between his thumb and first finger. He casts a glance over at them, eye brow arched. None of them dare break the charade, clinging to the last dregs of hope that he’s bluffing.

He loosens his grip on the lighter.

It begins to fall.

“No, don’t!” Ingrid shrieks, clapping her hands over her mouth. The lighter doesn’t fall, simply swings upside down, still precariously pinched between his fingers. Miklan stares at them, eyes burning, and snaps the lid of the lighter closed, extinguishing the flame that so easily could have burned Sylvain alive.

With another wave of his hand, a second guard marches forward, crowbar in hand. Felix closes his eyes, shoulders sagging in dismay. It’s over. Miklan knew Sylvain was in the box, of course. Felix knows that, even with that knowledge, Miklan still would have dropped the lighter.

When the lid falls away from the crate, Miklan bends down and hauls Sylvain out by his forearm. Sylvain doesn’t fight his grip, letting himself be moved and manhandled with no resistance, like a marionette on a string.

“Did you fuckers think I wouldn’t guess you would try and pull this shit?” he barks at them. “And did you really think I would just let you walk out of here with him?” None of them speak. “Sylvain is _my property_.” As if to prove his point, he tugs up the hem of Sylvain’s dress – a blue one, this time – showing off the crude brand burned into his skin. The other three, who hadn’t seen it, stare in horror.

They don’t dare speak.

“And you,” he growls at Sylvain, tightening his grip on Sylvain’s arm enough that the redhead gasps in pain. “I told you what would happen if you ever try to escape, bitch.”

“No,” he breathes, finally starting to strain against Miklan’s hold. He scratches at Miklan’s hand, kicks at his legs. He might as well be a child in his brother’s grasp. Miklan starts dragging him away, the four of them forgotten.

The crowd parts for their leader as he makes for the rotter pit.

“No!” Felix shouts, running after them. No one tries to stop him. He can vaguely hear the others running after him. Felix runs faster than he remembers ever running before, eyes blurry with tears.

He manages to catch up with them at the edge of the pit, vaulting over the fence and cutting Miklan off. His heels are pressed right to the edge, and a half-step back would send him falling to certain death.

“Get out of my way,” Miklan orders, seemingly unfazed by Sylvain still struggling to free himself, still pleading for Miklan to stop.

“This wasn’t Sylvain’s idea,” he tells Miklan desperately, as if it will change anything. “It was my idea. If you’re going to take it out on someone, take it out on me.”

Miklan regards him coldly for a moment. “If you insist,” he says with a shrug. Felix can’t react as Miklan sends him reeling back with a single, firm shove to the chest.

Sylvain’s screams ring out after him as Felix falls through the air, mingling with the shouts of his friends. He falls down and down and down.

Pain lances through his chest as he hits the bottom, all the air forced from his lungs. He sees stars, staring up with unfocused eyes at the blindingly blue sky above, ringed in a bowl of earth. The clouds roll slowly by, peaceful, calm.

The growl of the rotter drags him back from his daze. Above, Sylvain is still screaming, and he can just make out twin heads of red hair at the edge of the pit. The rattle of the chain binding the rotter sends ice down his spine.

With a groan, Felix manages to push himself to his feet.

The rotter strains against her chain, hands stretching out toward Felix as she snarls and snaps. Her decaying flesh is still stained with blood from the day before, and he can see the viscera caked under her broken, gnarled fingernails, stuck in her yellow, cracked teeth. This close, he can smell the fetid stench of rot on her. Instinctively, he reaches for his sword.

His hand clenches around nothing, and it takes him a moment to remember the fact that they were forced to disarm by Miklan’s guards by the trucks. He’s defenceless.

There’s a creak as the chain is given some slack, just an inch or two. A man stands at the wench, slowly spinning it. The rotter stumbles as she’s let closer to him, pulling against her chain. He can see the metal cutting into her putrefied skin. Some of it has sloughed off, leaving exposed the decomposing muscle and shriveled veins.

The last time he’d been this close to a rotter for more than the moment it took to hack off their head… the last time he’d been _helpless_ , the body had been fresh. It had been Glenn. As the chain is slowly let out and the rotter fights her way closer, Felix is eleven again.

Glenn shambles toward him, his face deathly pale and his once bright blue eyes now dull and lifeless. Felix presses back against the wall, curled up in the corner, barred off where the arms of the sofa and their father’s plush armchair meet. Trapped with nowhere to go, a small barrier between himself and his clumsy, hungry brother, newly risen and driven to eat.

Glenn bends over the arm of the chair, arms outstretched toward Felix, his nails just managing to scrape against his cheek, enough to draw angry red welts on his skin. And just as Glenn is gaining ground enough to scramble over the chair, his neck is sliced clean through with a sword, head falling into Felix’s lap with a sick plop, viscous, cooling blood pooling over him.

The clammy skin of the rotter’s hand, nasty nails scratching at Felix’s face, brings him back to the present. She’s close enough to touch him, but only just. She desperately scrabbles at him, and given just another inch or two, she’ll be able to wrap her fingers in his hair, or around the shoulder of his vest, drag him to her. And that will be it.

He presses his back as flat against the earthen wall as he can. His chest heaves, and his heartbeat sounds thunderous in his ears.

Above him, he can hear Sylvain. Shouting. Pleading. Begging Miklan to spare him.

“Please,” he sobs, “ _please_ , Miklan. I swear, I’ll never try to leave again. I’ll do what you want. I’ll be good, I swear. Please, don’t kill him. _Please_.” The chain creaks, the rotter jerking forward once more. She claws at Felix’s face, scraping up his skin and drawing blood that drips down, warm and sticky. The smell of blood drives her wild, makes her fight harder against the chain. “Please, I’ve never asked you for anything before. Not once. Do this _one_ thing for me, please. I’ll never ask for anything again. I’ll be good. I promise, I’ll be good for you, Miklan. I promise…”

The chain clanks once more, and Felix squeezes his eyes shut, bracing for death.

It doesn’t come.

With a strangled cry, the rotter is dragged back by the chain as it retreats, the wench cranked in the opposite direction. He stares in confusion as she writhes and claws against her confines, her meal taken from her.

He can barely process what’s happening when a rope is lowered down to him. He clings on to it, lets himself be hauled back up. Once he’s at the top, guards grab him roughly by the arms, forcing him to kneel in front of Miklan. A hand in his hair jerks his head back, makes him look up at Miklan, just like the man that had been fed to the rotter the day before.

Sylvain is on a heap next to Miklan, sobbing uncontrollably. Thanking him through sniffles and heaves of his chest. Miklan looms over Felix. Felix isn’t prepared for the knee that smashes against his face. He sees stars as pain wracks him, feels his nose crunch with the force of it. Blood streams down his chin, runs down the back of his throat. He feels like he might drown in it.

“Count yourself lucky, Felix,” Miklan muses, glaring down at him. “You’re the only person that’s gone in the pit who’s come out alive.” Felix fights the urge to spit blood at him. “You and your friends take your shit and leave. And never come back. I don’t show mercy twice.”

The guards holding Felix let him go, and he slumps over. Sylvain crawls over, his face a mess of snot and tears where Felix’s is a mess of blood and torn flesh. Sylvain holds him for a moment, muttering nearly incoherent apologies. Felix wants to tell him to stop, but the words won’t come.

Sylvain is yanked away with a yelp, Miklan pulling him back toward the compound by the roots of his hair. He stares after him, hoping his eyes can convey what his mouth won’t. _I’ll come back for you, Sylvain_ , he swears in his heart. _Just hold on a little longer._

Dedue and Dimitri gently help Felix up, support his weight on their way back to the truck. They help him into the truck, and with the scrutiny of Miklan’s guards on them, they drive through the gate, away from Miklan’s compound.

Ingrid treats his wounds as best she can, and he barely registers that she’s crying silently. He’s too numb. He doesn’t realize he’s crying too until the saline of his tears stings at the cuts on his cheeks. He stares out the back of the truck and lets himself cry.

Dimitri sits next to him, jaw a hard line, eye dark. He rests a hand on Felix’s shoulder, an attempt at warmth, at comfort. Felix doesn’t feel it. “I swear to you, Felix, we will come back for him.”

Felix nods once.

They don’t speak the rest of the drive back to their base.


End file.
